Judas Priest

Before anyone started calling it heavy metal, Judas Priest were hammering out the music's template. Formed in Birmingham, England, at the tail end of the '60s, the band's core trio -- singer Rob Halford, and guitarists K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton, all of whom collaborated on many of Priest's best-known songs -- pushed screaming guitars on top of thundering rhythms to help form the music's leather-studded blueprint. Halford's piercing screams elevated songs like 'Beyond the Realms of Death,' 'Breaking the Law' and 'Living After Midnight' into heavy new territory. But unlike so many groups that followed, Judas Priest rarely sacrificed melody along the way, even scoring a hit single with 'You've Got Another Thing Comin'' in 1982. Some personnel shifts over the years -- including a period where Halford was replaced by a singer from a Judas Priest cover band -- haven't affected the band much. In 2014, Priest released their 17th album, 'Redeemer of Souls.'